Sodium (Salt_ Calculator

The Sodium Calculator consists of 26 questions to capture how often sodium-containing foods are consumed; it provides users with rapid, detailed, personalized information on dietary sodium.

The Sodium Calculator questions were developed by examining the sources of sodium in the diet using the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS)-Nutrition 2004/2015. The sodium content (mg/100g) of foods and beverages that made the greatest contribution to sodium intakes were collected and combined using the University of Toronto Food Label Information Program (FLIP) 2013/2017 and the Canadian Nutrient File 2010/2015. FLIP is a branded food composition database of 10,487 and 16,761 packaged foods for 2013 and 2017, respectively, whereas the Canadian Nutrient File is the national food composition database of 5,807 (2010) and 5,690 (2015) foods maintained by Health Canada. The University of Toronto Restaurant-FLIP was used to derive the sodium content of fast-food and restaurants foods (n=4,836 and 12,271 for years 2013 and 2016, respectively). Foods were classified into sodium-focused categories that included food group (e.g. bakery), and major (e.g. bread) and minor (e.g. bagels) sub-categories.

To estimate the amount of sodium consumed from the different food categories, the Sodium Calculator uses algorithms based on average portion sizes consumed by 13 age and sex groups, as reported in the CCHS: all 4-8 years, and males and females 9-13 years, 14-18 years, 19-30 years, 30-51 years, 51-70 years and 71 years and older. Median sodium levels were derived from the FLIP and Canadian Nutrient File databases and were weighted according to the number of products in the food sub-category. Correction factors of 20% for packaged foods and 10% for restaurant foods were applied to the derived sodium estimates to approximate habitual sodium consumption.

‍

‍References‍

Arcand JA, Abdulaziz K, Bennett C, L’Abbé MR, Manuel DG. (2014) Developing a Web-based sodium screening tool for personalized assessment and feedback. Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism 39(3) doi:10.1139/apnm-2013-0322

‍